It was September in Paris. And it was time of Apple Expo. I can’t find a document to prove if it was 2002 or 2003. But I have the feeling it was 2003. Anyway, there had been Steve Jobs’ keynote. And there had also been the usual Q&A session for journalists, after the keynote. As usual I had been asking a lot of questions about what we could see by looking ahead. Jobs was not bored, he even seemed interested in answering. I don’t think he remembered me, but we had had quite a few interviews and Q&As before. Anyway I asked him: «But the iPod could be a phone?». He...
english (sort of)
1969-1989: The cold war on ourselves
In 1971, I went to America for the second time. My plane went directly to San Francisco. From there I randomly explored some places of the American mythology and of my curiosities, in a coast to coast journey which ended in New York. There was a friend with me. It was the first travel to the States for him. I had been reading Hemingway and Kerouac. He loved the Led Zeppelin and Janis Joplin. We were both 15. In our mind, America was the land of the future. In 1974, I went to the Urss for the first time. I went to Leningrad and Moskow. It was snowing. The places were magnificent. I had been...
Who rules the internet economy rules
There used to be a book, by Kevin Kelly, called New Rules for the New Economy. It was a long time ago. Since then, the very notion of “new economy” has been overcome by the notion of “financial bubble”, during the crazy years 1998-2000. (Not so crazy, though, looking at what happened next). However, some novelty, in the rules of the economy, have emerged. I’ve been thinking about that yesterday. They had invited me to speak at a meeting and they were so kind to pay for the airplane ticket. It was a Ryanair flight from Rome to Frankfurt. Ryanair is a low cost...
Internet framing problems
Ethan Zuckerman gives us a vastly informative post about the advocacy organization Invisible Children and their video called “Kony 2012“. The video is a call for action against Joseph Kony, who they say is terrorizing four countries in Africa using children as soldiers. The video has conquered enormous attention online and has won a huge success as a viral piece of advocacy content. Ethan, co-founder of Global Voices and leader at the Civic Media Center at Mit-MediaLab, explains why the video gives an oversimplified view of the matter, underlines how well crafted the video is...
Analfabetismo funzionale in Italia – Functional illiteracy in Italy
English version at the bottom of the page Al World editors forum ha fatto sensazione tra l’altro il tema dell’analfabetismo funzionale italiano, chiaramente collegato alla scarsa circolazione dei giornali. Un punto di partenza per questo tema è la definizione offerta dall’Ocse. “A person is functionally illiterate who cannot engage in all those activities in which literacy is required for effective functioning of his group and community and also for enabling him to continue to use reading, writing and calculation for his own and the community’s development...
How to explain a foreign audience why, as usual, the Italian situation is tragic but it’s not serious
In less than an hour, I will be speaking in Vienna, at the World Editors Forum. They asked me to tell a story about how newspapers should improve, particularly on paper. All right. That’s the trap. How can I get out of it? The Italian situation, as usual, is tragic but it is not serious. It is not serious because we seem unable to have any serious debate at the political level about ourselves, the way we manage our public finances, the way we organize. And because we have a weird kind of government. It is tragic also because the problem is not only in the political class. Italians that...
The case for an Italian rebellion. Why it doesn’t happen. And what could happen
The case for an Italian rebellion is not insane. I had the chance to speak with many foreign observers, recently, and I found that an Italian rebellion is considered a real option. (I will not quote their names, but if they want they can comment here). An Italian rebellion? Other Mediterranean countries have done just so, lately. Tunisia and Egypt, for example, have chosen to rebel against their dictators and the world has appreciated. Considering the Italian political situation as a sort of authoritarian regime and thinking that it is not reformable through the normal democratic process, one...
Italian media at Mit MediaLab
It was great to meet such an incredible group of researchers who are working in one of the myth of media studies, lead by a myth of cosmopolitan, civic, active media like Ethan Zuckerman. My contribution, it seems, has helped them to open their views in a weird way: they needed, it seems, to get over the cutting edge problems that they face in their day to day life, and to go back to where part of the rest of the world is, or where at least Italy is: somewhere in the past. Why should such a contribution be in any way interesting? History is done by leading, innovative contexts, such as the...
Experience Cambridge. A day from Harvard to Mit
Well, thanks to a lucky day, I spent the day between Harvard and the MediaLab. I will report about what happened. But I must say one thing right now: it is an experience of quality. The general idea that I had the feeling is that there is a network full of ideas in which every single person works on her meaning as an individual contributor to the ecosystem. The cure to living the present times is made by a set of practices: 1. telling stories and showing their meaning by linking them to the rest of the world (cosmopolitan identity, as in Ethan Zuckerman’s next book)2. thinking projects...
Mit-MediaLab: Citizen and professional media in Italy
Ethan Zuckerman, head of the Mit Center for Civic Media, invited me to share some experiences about civic media and professional media in Italy. Here are some notes. Just notes. I must confess that I was really flattered but I was also quite worried, because I didn’t think that Italy could be such an interesting subject at the MediaLab… How did I sort out of that? With a set of questions in two steps: First step – I sort of forced myself to think what I could say after a title like the following: Why the Italian civic media landscape matters to you? I mean: why the Italian...
Luca De Biase
Commenti